The Crown of Embers (6 page)

This time, my waking screams are cut off by vomit spewing from my mouth.

Mara and Ximena rush to help me clean up. I try to rise, and they hold me down, insisting they will have me set to rights in no time. But I thrust them back with more strength than I ought to have. Clutching the bedpost, I drag myself over the side and gain my feet.

My legs quiver with disuse, but they do not betray me. “Find Hector,” I order to no one in particular. The vomit is already a cold plaster gluing my nightgown to my skin, and my nose stings from the rotten-spice scent. “I’m going to wash,” I tell them. “And then . . . and then . . .” I have no choice. I have to face this black monster of terror before it eats me from the inside out. “And then, I must return to the catacombs. Tonight.”

I bathe quickly, with Mara’s help. Ximena plies me with a gown, but I refuse. “Pants,” I say. “And my linen blouse.” I’ll not be hampered by a skirt—it’s all I can do to remain steady as it is—and I know I’ll feel more comfortable, more capable, in my desert garb.

Hector arrives as Ximena finishes lacing my camel-hair boots, and I rise to greet him. “Sorry to rouse you,” I say. I feel guilty that I’ve decided on an excursion during the one night he allows himself to rest.

“A queen needn’t ever apologize to her guard. Where are we going?”

“The catacombs. I need to . . . to see the place again.”

“We scoured it a dozen times. We found nothing.”

Ximena weaves my hair into one long braid down my back. I have so much hair that she usually weaves two, one atop the other, but she senses my urgency. “
We
found nothing? Or the general?” I ask. “Forgive me if I don’t trust him to be thorough.”

Hector opens his mouth as if to say something, but changes his mind.

I wave off the question. “Also . . . there’s something else. Like a memory that’s almost there but not.”

My nurse ties the end of my braid and gives my back a gentle pat. Hector says, “Then we go. But do let me carry you if you tire.”

“Of course. Thank you.” I turn away to hide my flushing face, remembering how he carried me in our failed rush to save Martín. It would be easy to let him do it again. For a moment, I consider pretending to be weaker than I am.

But I shake it off. I’m already in danger of being thought a feeble queen, and I will not pretend weakness. Not ever, not for anyone.

I hold my head high as my entourage—Hector, Ximena, Mara, and a handful of guards—array themselves in a protective circle around me. In careful formation, we exit the suite and hurry to the ground floor.

A sentry I’ve never met before stands in Martín’s place. Anger at him boils up inside me, but I recognize the feeling as unfair and manage a nod as he bows low. Hector insists on leading us into the stairwell, and I let him. The steps are tricky, and my legs feel like date jelly, but I put a hand on Hector’s shoulder and use him as a crutch as I descend.

The yawning jaws of the Hall of Skulls seem to pulse in the flickering candle flames. Mara is rigid beside me, and I find strange comfort in the fact that someone is as frightened as I am.

But the fear dissipates as we enter Alejandro’s tomb. It’s so different than in my nightmares, crowded with my companions this time, several bearing torches. It’s bright and warm, the air still. I feel everyone’s eyes on me as I wander through the caskets, my fingers brushing the silk banners. I’m not sure what I’m hoping to find, how this excursion will help. When the toes of my boots encounter a large dark stain on the stone floor, I freeze.

My blood.

My fingertips find the wound at my side, then the bump on my skull. I fell and hit my head, Doctor Enzo told me. But that’s not right. I fell onto my side. Now that I’m staring at the exact spot, I remember my cheek splatting in my own blood. How, then, did I get such a terrible knot on the back of my head? What really happened here?

I mutter, “Something isn’t . . . I don’t remember . . .” I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. That I didn’t hit my head? I obviously did. Maybe I tried to get up and then fell a second time. I lost so much blood, it’s a wonder I remember as much as I do.

“Elisa?” Hector says.

I look up, startled by his voice. The torchlight makes hollows of his cheeks. “I’m not sure. I . . .” Something about the light. The way it’s moving. So different from my dream. My gaze moves to the torch he carries. “Your torch.”

He waits for me to puzzle it out, familiar by now with the way my mind works.

Think, Elisa!
And then I have it. “Your torch flame isn’t moving.”

“No,” he agrees. “It’s very still.”

Everyone is watching us, watching me. Perhaps they’re worried that my injuries have addled my mind, that, as Doctor Enzo suggested, there is permanent damage. But my thoughts are clearer than ever.

“In my dream—no, in my
memory
—there was a breeze.” I close my eyes, listen to the underground river wash through the caverns. I remember the brush of air against my face before the torch winked out. “It was more than a breeze. It
gusted
. My torch was sconced in the wall. And when the wind blew, it died.” I open my eyes.

It’s such a small thing, the slightest sliver of strangeness, but I am queen and they must take me seriously.

“Maybe someone opened the entrance upstairs,” Ximena suggests.

“Or what if someone walked by?” says one of the guards. “In a hurry.”

“Her Majesty said it
gusted,
” Mara says. “Walking by would not cause a torch to go out.”

“Maybe he had bad gas,” says another. “Have you seen what they feed us in the barracks?”

“Fernando!” Hector snaps, but I chuckle. It’s not particularly funny, but everyone joins me, and I allow myself to keep at it because in spite of the pain, it also feels really nice.

Finally I catch my breath and say what everyone is surely thinking: “I suppose we ought to consider that there is a hidden entrance to this chamber.”

Chapter 6

T
HINKING
of the escape tunnel Hector and I used to reenter the palace, I realize that of course my new home would have other secrets, many of them forgotten, perhaps lost to centuries of restorations and additions.

Ximena brushes past me and begins searching the stone wall with her fingertips. “If there is another way in, we
must
find it,” she mutters. She’s right; we dare not leave any entrance to the palace unguarded.

Everyone jumps to help in the search, and my nurse directs them with strategic efficiency. Within moments, each section of wall and floor suffers the scrutiny of prying fingers. I itch to join them, but it’s all I can do to prop myself upright against an empty casket.

“Search quietly,” Ximena says. “Tell me if you hear something or feel air movement.” It comes as no surprise that my guardian knows something of secret passageways. She probably knows as many ways to exit a fortress as she does to kill a man.

Mara is crawling on the floor when she says, “I feel something. A breeze maybe.”

I start forward too quickly, and pain shoots down my side. Hector is at my elbow instantly. I lean into him.

“Which direction?” Ximena asks.

“Not sure.” Mara looks up. “I felt it against my left cheek.”

One of the guards crouches beside her with a torch.

“Watch the banner,” Ximena says as the flame comes dangerously close to the casket’s silk covering.

Mara and the guard run their fingers along the cobblestones, searching for cracks.

“Try pressing on them?” the guard suggests. “In my father’s library, one of the hearthstones triggers a door.”

So they press on all the nearest stones, from every different angle. Still nothing.

I say, “Try the pedestal.” The casket resting upon it is empty, patiently awaiting a permanent resident, maybe me.

Everyone crowds around, torches held high, blocking my view. I loose an exasperated breath.

Hector whispers into my ear, “Everything all right?”

“Just frustrated. I hate being weak. And I may have dragged everyone down here in the middle of the night for noth—”

“A latch!” Ximena says. “Tucked under the base. Let me see if I can . . .”

The casket rises a finger’s breadth. Several guards jump out of the way as the pedestal and its coffin pivot soundlessly to the side. Fresh air blasts the room, and a torch winks out. The others waver but hold.

Holding Hector’s arm to steady myself, I peer over Mara’s shoulder and almost sneeze from the cool, briny air pricking my nostrils. Where the pedestal stood is a gaping hole. Stone steps, edged with green moss, spiral into darkness. The guard shifts his torch, the light glints off the green stuff, and I see that it’s actually a viscous mold.

“Ugh,” says Mara.

“Ugh,” Ximena agrees.

Hector says, “You were right, Majesty,” and I get the feeling he’s speaking for everyone else’s benefit. “You were right to trust your instincts, and you were right to trust Martín.”

His words warm me. Hector has always been my greatest ally. I catch his eye and nod slightly, hoping he understands how grateful I am to him right now.

“Well,” I say. “Let’s exonerate him by finding out where this leads.”

The guards press toward the secret stairway, eager to step into the dangerous unknown.

“Wait a moment,” I say. “Mara, return to my suite. Make excuses to any visitors. On your way, tell the sentry that I wish to be undisturbed as I pray.”

She nods with obvious relief, and Hector gestures for two guards to accompany her.

As they depart, he turns to me. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“Doing something active is the best thing for my recovery.”

“I knew you’d say that.” The slightest smile curves his lips. “A walk in the monastery garden is something active. This is—”

“This is what I’m going to do.”

He sighs, resigned. “Times like this, I miss Alejandro. He was malleable.”

I choke back a startled laugh.

“Hold on to my shoulder. And if you change your mind—”

“Yes, let’s
go
.”

I glance over at Ximena, expecting her to protest, but she just stares at Hector, her face unreadable.

Fernando steps into the hole first, holding the torch aloft, and Hector follows. When my turn comes, I’m careful to land squarely on the balls of my feet to avoid slipping on the green slime. Moist air tickles my face, lifting strands of hair from my temples. We are sure to encounter water on this expedition, for the underground river is nearby, its rushing steady and monstrous, so ever-present that it is almost like silence.

The stair spirals—tight and steep. The close-in walls are covered with the slime, and I’m reluctant to touch them, even for balance. I find it’s easier to leave my hand at the crook of Hector’s shoulder and trust him to keep us both upright.

“There are scuffs in the slime,” Fernando says, and his voice echoes around us. “Someone passed this way.”

“There were no footprints in the tomb,” Hector asks.

“Did the floor look
too
clean, by chance?” I ask. “Who was first to investigate?”

Hector pauses on the step, and my knees bump the backs of his thighs. But he continues without answering. Maybe he doesn’t want to name the general within hearing of his men.

My wounded abdomen throbs with strain by the time the stair ends at a low tunnel. The sand floor is smoothly rippled, like a beach after the waves have retreated.

“It’s flooded at high tide,” Hector says as I’m drawing the same conclusion. “There’s the water line.” He points to the wall, where a wainscoting of barnacles reaches knee-high.

I swallow against disappointment. All trace of those who passed before will have washed away, and we are unlikely to find a clue here about my would-be assassin.

Fernando squeals, and we all jump. “Sorry,” he says, breathless. “Crab.” I’m suddenly very glad for my desert boots, which are impervious to slime and sand and scuttling creatures.

Something on the wall catches my eye—a carved rivulet in the stone. “What’s that?” I point.

Fernando lifts his torch to reveal a line of script, each letter the height of my pinky finger. My Godstone warms with recognition.

“It’s in the Lengua Classica,” Ximena says, her voice breathy with wonder. “From the
Scriptura Sancta
.”

I translate. “The gate that leads to life is narrow and small so that few find it.”

Ximena reaches out to trace the letters with her fingers. She was a scribe at the Monastery-at-Amalur before she became my nurse, and like me, she has a reverent interest in ancient texts and holy writings.

“Look at this loop here,” she says. “And the flip at the end of the accent mark. This style of script hasn’t been used for centuries.”

“But is it meant for those coming or going?” I muse. “Which direction ‘leads to life’?”

“Only one way to find out,” Hector says, and it warms me to hear the anticipation in his voice.

The limestone squeezes tighter until the corridor is barely wide enough for the guards’ armored shoulders. Though it’s cool and breezy, I’m too aware of the weight of rock above. So huge, so heavy. A whole city goes about its business up there. I’m becoming very nervous when Fernando announces, “Another stair.”

This one leads upward, straight instead of spiraled, and rough-hewn as if carved by a giant clumsy ax. I’m glad to note dry, mold-free steps.

“Fernando,” says Hector. “Aim your torch away.”

The guard puts the torch behind his back. Ximena does the same with hers, and it becomes apparent that a separate glow, faint but true, illuminates the stairway.

“Do you think it leads outside?” I ask.

“We’ve descended too far,” Hector says. “Unless I’ve gotten turned around, I think we’re beneath the Wallows.”

The Wallows. The most dangerous quarter of my city, where I’m not to travel even with an armed escort. The place each monarch before me has vowed to improve, with mixed—mostly poor—results. Where prostitutes and beggars and black-market merchants band together to form a society within a society, outside of my rule.

Hector turns to me, his gaze fierce. “Majesty, if I sense danger, I’ll hustle you away, against your will if necessary.”

“And if that happens, I promise to be only temporarily enraged.” It comes out more sharply than I intend, mostly out of pique that he has reverted to calling me Majesty even among friends. “Let’s go.”

Climbing yanks at my sore stomach, and I slow everyone down. The passage is so tight and steep that hanging on to Hector is more trouble than it’s worth. The sound of rushing water gets louder, and the glow brightens. Soon we don’t need the torches at all. I can’t imagine what would cause such light so deep underground.

The stairway levels off. Fernando gasps, and I’m about to ask him what he sees, but speech leaves me when I step into brightness.

The stair has ended at a high ledge overlooking the most enormous cavern I’ve ever seen. The river curves against the sheer wall opposite our ledge. The water is as smooth and clear as glass, though a constant sound like rushing wind attests to rapids nearby. To our left, the wall is riddled with smaller caves, all connected to one another by swinging ladders and scalloping rope bridges. On the floor of the cavern are several large huts, cobbled together from driftwood and shipwreck scavenge.

People are everywhere, going about their lives as if this were any ordinary place. A woman sits framed in the entrance to one of the small caves, stirring something over a cook fire. Outside the largest hut, two bearded, wind-chapped men work together repairing a fishing net. Near the river, a group of barefoot children plays a game with sticks and a leather ball.

Light streams through cracks in the ceiling. These sunlit crevices are lush with plants: broad-leafed creepers, a few ferns, and hundreds of hanging vines that don’t quite brush the tops of the huts.

“It’s a whole village,” I whisper, “right beneath our feet all this time.”

“I’ve not even heard of this place,” Hector whispers back.

But the peculiar nature of the cavern amplifies our voices, carries them to the huts below. Everyone freezes and looks up. I see my own shock mirrored in their faces.

Hector’s hand flies to his scabbard. He and Fernando step up to shield me from view. But it is too late, for someone bellows, “It’s the queen!”

I hear gasps of surprise, utensils clattering, running footsteps.

Hector whirls on me. “We need to get you out of here.”

“Not yet! They’re more afraid of us than we are of them, see?”

Fernando swings his bow over his shoulder and fits an arrow. He and Hector exchange a look, and Hector nods. The guard steps forward, draws the bow, aims toward the milieu below.

“Halt!” Hector booms. “In the name of the queen.”

The sounds of humanity fade, leaving only the wind whistling above and the water rushing below. Now that everyone has stilled, I note bandages, a sling, a splinted leg, a head wrap stained brownish red.

“We have their attention, Your Majesty,” Hector says. “Would you like to address them? Or do you wish to retreat? I recommend ret—”

“Hector, these people are wounded,” I whisper.

“They were most likely involved in the riots,” he says matter-of-factly.

They all stare up at me, half in terror, half in hope, and the sight is so familiar that my heart aches. Who would hurt these people? “They look like they’ve been to war.”

“Riots
are
war.”

Oh.
My stomach thuds with the understanding that they were probably injured in my name. I am at war again. A nebulous, aimless kind, but a war nevertheless. These are my people. But maybe they’re my enemy too.

“Do they have weapons?” I ask. “Can they reach us from down there?”

“I see none. We have the high ground and the advantage for now.”

Maybe I should burn the place to the ground, force everyone to the surface. But the
Belleza Guerra
rings in my head.
Always cultivate allies
.
When that fails, cultivate fear in your enemies.

I step forward. Hector moves aside to let me pass, but I know from the whisper of steel on steel that he has drawn his sword. Fernando’s eyes roam the crowd, ready to shift his sights in the space of an instant.

My confidence grows, which seems strange until I realize that this secret cavern reminds me of the hidden desert camp where I spent months plotting our war against Invierne. Like my desert rebels, these people are ragged but clean, wounded but proud. I probably should not allow myself this feeling of kinship.

“This is a surprise,” I say, and my voice echoes around me. I smile, hoping to put them at ease, but I see only fear reflected back. One woman reaches down and hooks a young boy with her arm, pulling him against her.

I decide honesty is the best approach. “I could send a company of soldiers to empty this place.” Eyes widen, feet shift. “It’s clear you’ve already caused some trouble, but I might be convinced to overlook that. If you’re hiding here just to avoid the tax increase or to do some honest commerce away from the guilds’ prying eyes, then I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.”